Waiting...

Today is counseling day.
And fuck — do I have some shit to talk about.

Life kicked me in the ass.
Fear is all I feel right now.
Nightmares won’t stop.
You’d think I’d be used to them by now.
I’m not.
Not these nightmares.
Not these monsters.
These aren’t the monsters I can fight.

No.
These monsters have no faces.
No names.
No weaknesses.
They’re the fears I can’t battle.
The ones we all eventually have to face alone.

We still don’t have answers.
Not from the doctors.
Not from the blood work.
It’s not my story to tell, but goddamn, the terror is real.
The terror of losing the one person who’s never left me.
The one person who’s stayed through every dark thing.

I’m trying to hold it together.
But I wake up gasping from these dreams.
And I look over at him.
And I have to thank every god I can think of that he’s still there.
Still breathing.
Still with me.

It could be nothing.
But it could be everything.

If I knew.
If there was a name.
If I knew how to fight.
How to act.
How to put on the armor he needs me to wear.

But I don’t know.
I’m stuck waiting.
Helpless.
Broken by the not knowing.
No defense.
Just fear.
And it’s eating me alive.

I know one day one of us will lose the other.
That’s life.
But not like this.
Not so soon.
Not after I finally said it out loud — I love him.
That he is my breath.
My life.
My love.

Twenty fucking years it took me to admit it.
And now?
Now this.

The nightmares won’t stop until we know.
Until the demon has a face and a name.
Because that’s how I survive.
I fight what I see.

But this waiting?
This not knowing?
It’s a poison.
And I can’t stand it.